


Fuck It, Let's Save Magick

by writingtoomuchfanfiction



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Gift, Interactive, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:48:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingtoomuchfanfiction/pseuds/writingtoomuchfanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift for heck-yeah-books on tumblr. Merry belated Christmas!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A

**Author's Note:**

> [this fic requires a friend. they’ll be your roommate, assigned by the crucible- pick anyone online [but due to housing regulation, must be female as well, and has to be someone you’ve never spoken to before! your last name is Rodriguez, and your friend’s last name is Redwood, for the purposes of this fic.] 
> 
> For the past ten years, the holes in the magickal universe haven’t changed a bit- and Simon Snow has moved on with his life, tucked away with his daughter and his husband-to-be. Headmistress Bunce is sorting out the old families, fighting for peace in disputes much older than the Humdrum. Someone needs to fix this mess, but who? You’re in your last year, with average grades, no Chosen One prophecies to speak of. Enter you and your friend, at breakfast… 
> 
> >I decide that we should fix the holes in the magickal atmosphere. Someone has to, and I’m willing to put in the effort. I can do this, I may get average grades, but I can do extra credit to work on my spells. [turn to part A]
> 
> >I’m failing half my classes. The Minotaur told me that the only way I could possibly pass was by miracle, and if I can fix this, that has to be my ticket to graduate. [turn to part B]

**_A_ **

 

          I bite into a scone just as my friend, Red, sits down next to me at the table. I’d say hello, but I’m reading the paper- it’s amazing how far behind you can get at Watford, and I don’t want to go home at the end of the year as ignorant as a first year. It’s so easy not to care about anything but Watford- about anything beyond Watford- but this is the final year. Our last chance to figure out what the hell we’re going to do after school. Red elbows me. “What’s your problem today?” she asks. I gesture towards an article about the latest reports from the dead spots.  

         “They haven’t found a way to stop that yet,” I sigh. “You’d think, with all their power, they’d show articles like that on the front page, but there’s barely any effort at all anymore.” It had become just a fact of life, except- maybe I’m not ready to accept that fact yet. 

          “Oh, and you’re going to save the day?” Red grabs a scone and tries to cast  **fresh out of the oven** , but it doesn’t work. She’s been trying to create a spell for the past month. I think I’m more frustrated with it than she is. “You can’t seriously be considering this,” she adds, and the expression on my face makes her stop. I’m stubborn enough to do this, I work hard. And truthfully, my senior year stress needs an outlet or I’ll burn up. 

         “Why not?” Someone ought to take this seriously, and I’m itching to bury myself in a project. I’m the better half of mediocre, and mediocre doesn’t cut it if I want a decent career. “Look, we could do this.” I think of the whiteboard in our room, and I’m halfway out of my chair already. 

 

Aa) Red decides to help me! We’re going to start right away, planning- meet in our room tonight. 

Ab) She doesn’t want to help me, but she can’t stop me from doing this. I’ll head to the library after classes. 


	2. B

**_B_ **

 

       I sit cross-legged on my bed, staring at the hastily scrawled failing grade on my last paper for political sciences, and wonder if the professor even read it. If they bother to read my papers, or watch my spellwork. To be honest, I’m not exactly a student to watch- I may be terrible, but I can always sort myself out, and my roommate- Red- usually puts out the fires. “He did give me a chance,” I try, and Red groans, rolling onto her stomach. She’s trying to sleep, but I can’t sleep. “No, I’m serious,” I repeat. “I need to pass these classes, so I may as well try to perform a miracle.” 

       “The world doesn’t need saving,” she mutters, sitting upright- giving up on sleep. I avoid those bright, intelligent eyes- they only remind me of how dull I must look, scraping by. It’s not that I’m bad at magick. It’s that I don’t care- I can’t bring myself to care what some posh bastard did twenty years ago that was brilliant when there’s so much to do now. I’m terrible in latin and greek, but I’m nearly top of my class in Elocution. I’ve been working on discovering spells, and I have a knack for it. Some of them have worked, briefly (and inevitably sputtered out and died, but I’m no Natasha Pitch). “Your career is the only thing that needs a miracle. The world was already saved by a vampire and a goatherd.” That stung. I like the goats, although they’re unruly and testy. Word has it that they used to be much milder, when there was a goatherd- Ebb- with them, but she’s gone. 

       “No. What about use left behind afterwards?” I demand. “What about the houses inside dead spots? What about all the scattered dead spots that drive people mad?” Can I really fix those? I don’t know. I’ve never tried. “Come on, help me out with this.” 

 

Ab) We decide to start working on this tonight in our room. Where I go, she goes. 

Bb) I need to think about this, and I need to hunt. I’ll head up to the wavering wood to sort this out. [vampire subplot]


	3. Aa

**_Aa_ **

        The whiteboard in our room was installed by the last students to live in it, and was never taken down. I erase our schedules- we can remember those, surely, and anyways, this is more important. Red watches me warily. I must look like a madman, clearing every word and smudge away before I set up the categories. Headmistress Bunce teaches us as first-years that critical thinking and planning starts with these three categories, so I write them at the very top in a squeaky blue marker. Things We Know, Things We Don’t Know, and, in the middle, questions- which I write as Things We Ought To Know. 

        I start out with the Humdrum. “Consumed magick. Ceased to exist because Snow poured his magick into it and it collapsed.” Sometimes I think I’ll collapse. Just from the weight of it all. I work so hard, I barely sleep sometimes. The stress will kill me before anything else does, the work of looking like I’m ahead even though I’m average. I pull my hair up into a bun to focus, staring at the information, and Red takes a marker. 

         “Where does magick go when it’s consumed?” she writes, and suddenly we have a theory, there’s a tangible idea to work with. It can’t just- leave. It can’t be suddenly  _ gone.  _ And it didn’t go towards Simon Snow. Either the dead spots are literal leaks, in which case the areas around them must have more magick, or the magick went into the ground and the trees and the background of the places, instead of the air. It was used for spells, but spells don’t use it all up. That would violate every natural law. 

        “We need to rule out theories,” I say, even though it’s obvious. I write “Location of magickal energy used for spells in dead spots” under Things We Don’t Know. “Where do we start?” 

          The answer is obvious. We start at the beginning. 

 

Ab) I go to the library to research. 

Aac) I go straight to the headmistress. We want to go to the dead spots themselves, to see the damage. 


	4. Ab

**_Ab_ **

 

       The library at Watford is no Grimm or Pitch library, but it is warm and smelled of old books, the furniture worn down and familiar. It feels like a friend, if a building could be animated. I scan the shelves, and the floor is so clean that for a minute I’m uncomfortable. I feel like I ought to remove my shoes. I take off my knit cap to ease the feeling and proceed, wandering towards a row of shelves at the back of the library. It’s quiet, the air still- holding its breath. 

      The book I’m looking for is on the top shelf, and it takes me a minute to think of the spell. I’m so nervous and excited about the possibility of doing this that I’m already practically bouncing- this is ridiculous. Simon Snow couldn’t do it- mind, Baz Pitch and Penelope Bunce couldn’t do this.  _ I’m going to fucking try.  _ It’s just a bloody book. “ **We all fall down** ,” I cast, and the book falls into my hands. I leaf through the crackling pages, the worn down letters with fading ink. Someone’s written in red ink on the sides, the purposes of all of these rhymes- this was my go-to study book, something that the librarian requested last time I studied until eleven in here. 

      There’s a page with a blank rhyme. I stop. The red ink has stopped, with one question mark, and my heartbeat picks up. It’s a healing spell, of some sort, but it hasn’t worked on anyone. 

 

  1. D) We have to steal a car and go to one of the dead spots tonight. 
  2. E)  I’m going to go on my own tonight, so that I can do this and come back, and prove to them all that I can do what they couldn’t. I’ll finally be taken seriously. 




	5. Bb

**Bb**

 

       I climb the hills and my sights fall to the Wood. I’m not sure how I feel about the Wood- it’s a source of squirrels and mice and other creatures that I need in order to survive, but it’s also full of creatures I need to survive, if that makes sense. The druids hate me for it, and they hide from me when I enter, as unobtrusively as I can. I crouch by a tree, close my eyes, and listen. I don’t use spells for hunting- it doesn’t feel right, somehow. It feels as if I’m not giving them a proper chance. I may be a predator, but I’m not a demon- trickery isn’t my forte. 

      I force myself to go still, shutting out thoughts of the Insidious Humdrum. My mind is blank. My mind is forest. I rely upon my hearing, rather than my sight- the forest can trick you. And the blasted Wavering Wood wants to trick me. 

      There’s a rabbit nibbling at the leaves a meter away. I ignore it. Too many memories of domestic rabbits interfere with it- it makes me sick, as if I’d been asked to eat my own pet. Instead, I open my eyes, focusing on the squirrel just a few feet away. For a moment, I feel sick. I always do. I was raised in a home, with pets, and the magick we use is simple and practical. 

       Then I went and got myself Turned by a twelve-year-old vampire that was as terrified as I was by the fact. He went to jail… he’ll be released soon. I don’t know what I’ll say to him, or if I’ll ever see him again. And now I’m crouched to move forward and take a squirrel by the back of the neck. I pause a second longer, then spring, grabbing it with my hand before my fangs sink into the arteries. I can feel its pulse. What a curse it is, to hate your own means of survival. 

        There’s a raw power in the feeling of being sated, of a lost appetite but a found strength. It’s a confidence. I may fail all of my classes, but I’ll have my spellwork- I’m the best at new spells, anyways, and that’s the most interesting part of magick- I can do anything in the high. Supposedly, I should be weighted down and sedated, but maybe I wasn’t Turned correctly- or maybe I was Turned into something half, something in-between. 

        I need a plan. I need to do something with myself before I crash down from this. I drop the squirrel’s carcass- a bird will come for it, or another predator. I like birds of prey, I like raptors- they live as unapologetically as I wish I could.

 

D) I convince Red that we should steal a car and visit the sites, to find the magick wherever it’s hiding.

Ab) I go to the library. I need a spell, and maybe there’s another way to do this...


	6. Aac

**Aac**

 

        I tug my knit hat farther down over my ears and knock again, tilting my head. There’s footsteps on the other end, and I step back, away from the door. The headmistress opens it, her hair in a loose bun, her robes wrinkled. Of course- it’s still so close to the beginning of the year, and the littluns are bound to be at her door every five minutes with questions. “Good morning, Lady,” I start, and remember that most of the teachers have told me to use ma’am instead of Lady. “I want to fix the Humdrum’s atmospheric holes.” She stares at me as if I’ve gone completely mental, but steps to the side anyways, inviting me in. “I’m top of the class in creating new spells, even if I’m struggling with the old ones, and-” 

         “-and it’s your last year, so you’d like to go on an adventure? I’m all for this, Rodriguez, an internship. My husband does study the subject extensively.” She’s sizing me up, and I make an effort to look confident. It’s difficult to look confident around the headmistress. She uses all of the confidence up in a room until there’s none left, like trying to draw stick figures around Monet. “That expression tells me you’re not speaking of becoming an intern.” 

          “No, ma’am, respectively, I want to go to one of the holes myself. With Red- with my roommate. We think we can draw magick out of the surroundings- accelerate the process, so to speak.” I cast a  **see what I mean** and the image of the whiteboard from earlier appears in front of us. The headmistress tilts her head, thoughtful. “We want to test it out.” 

         “I can grant you permission, but I’m sending my husband with you. He’s an expert, and I can’t have students driving.” 

 

  1. C) Perfect! That’s perfect. Let’s go tomorrow morning, 
  2. D) What if he steals our credit? Let’s steal a car instead. Why not?




	7. C

**C**

 

        A thunderstorm rages outside the car windows as the beat-up blue car slowed to stop outside Hampshire, at the edges of a forest. I stare dubiously at the field and the house that sits, still proudly, within it, a Victorian mansion. We’re at the Pitch household, I know that instantly- one of the darker old families. It’s work not to feel proud to be here- I’m just as good as them, I don’t need this. Bunce turns around to face Red and I in the backseat. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he warns. 

        Fuck off, I think. I take a deep breath, and glance at Red. It could work, or it might not. In which case we’re going to get soaking wet and covered in mud for nothing. 

 

Cb) I’m going to try out that spell I found in the library. 

Cc) I’m going to try shifting the magick from outside into the dead spot. 


	8. Cb

**Cb**

 

        I clutch the torn-up paper to me, and climb out of the car, Red following me. My boots squelch in the mud, the drops landing between my eyes and on my ears, dripping down my back. It’s as cold as a witch’s ass and the air still has a tangy, dry, hot suck to it, as if the Humdrum couldn’t be bothered with such trifles as the entire force of nature. Lightning cracks as it strikes the ground, spreading out. A tree is afire, but the grass around it won’t catch, it just smokes. Wind carries the smoke to my nose, an acrid scent, somehow fitting for the dead spot. 

        I try the spell once, and it doesn’t take. My elocution is rubbish without practice, and this spell no one’s bothered messing with in a very long time. I haven’t practiced. Thunder rolls a five over my head, a game of poker, and lightning’s laughter cracks again; nature is making fun of me. The dead spot is fighting back, feral. I point my wand again, and bare my teeth. Fuck you, Humdrum. “ **_Down came the rain and washed the spider out!_ ** ” 

 

        I watched it work, I watched it wash away that damned Humdrum and I thought maybe, just maybe, the Minotaur will give me an A for the semester. 


	9. Cc

**Cc)**

 

       If I’m right, moving this magick is going to take all of a moment, barely half a minute. Dozens of spells move things, but I have to concentrate on what I’m moving, and where. I climb out of the backseat and pull my raincoat in, fumbling with the zipper. It’s bloody cold out here, and the mud is practically freezing, but there’s a hot, dry suck to the air. The Humdrum. My generation only knows it through stories, and vague childhood memories. “Let’s do this!” I yell across the wind to Red. She responds, but I’ve no idea what she’s saying. The wind is howling, the Humdrum’s shadow is sucking the magick out and I retreat to the edge, where I feel slightly less torn in half. 

       I fish my wand out of my pocket- fish is an accurate term, because it’s filling up with water- and point it at a tree. A blue spruce, not that it matters. “ **Hustle** !” I try, and then focus even harder. It’ll work. It’ll work. It’ll work. “ **Get going! This is the big leagues! Hit the road!** ” 

        “Try a nursery rhyme!” Red yells, and there’s a  **speak up** on her voice, so that it echoes around me. I swallow. I don’t do well with old spells, but she wants me to do it- if it can be done. So that I get credit, bless her. 

        “ **Over the hills and through the woods** ,” I cast, and she’s already cast a  **speak up** on my voice. The two spells slam into each other and I can feel it, it’s doing something, and the sucking isn’t gone but the hot, dry sensation has been reduced to a static tingling. I can feel cold drops down the back of my neck, my eyelashes weighed down by water. “It worked! It fucking worked!” 


	10. D

**D**

 

        “Whose car is this?” Red whispers as she jams the paperclip into the keyhole. It shouldn’t work, but I’m almost positive that she cast an illegal unlocking spell under her breath, somewhere amidst the swearing. The engine roars to life, and she grins, glancing sideways at me. I have to admit, I’m impressed- and this car is something, too. A green Jeep, with foglights that can cut through the drizzles of rain beginning to come down. I’d grabbed a raincoat as we left the room, and I cast a hurry up on the car. I haven’t lost any patience- I never had any patience. 

 

Cb) I’m using a spell from the library. 

Cc) I’m going to try to move the magick from the surroundings back into the dead spot. 


	11. E

**E**

 

         I don’t know where to go, so I opt for the Pitch’s house. I saw it on a map once, and it’s one of the biggest dead spots reported. I saw an article in the paper about it, and memories spring to mind as I wrestle with the steering wheel of the stolen Jeep. I remember when it was a constant threat- I was a little kid at the time. I heard the whispers, the fear. One of my childhood friends had to move because of a dead spot. It claimed everything, even their home. Their whole livelihood was altered by the damned beast.  

         The rain is coming down in torrents as the Jeep screeches to a halt on the edge of the forest and I dig out my wand, pointing it with a flourish at the general sky. I stop. While dramatic, this isn’t exactly practical. I take six strides back, beyond the edge of the dead spot, and point my redwood wand at the Pitch family household- a Victorian mansion, sprawling and dark, full of secrets and libraries that far exceeded Watford’s. It resembled the Pitch family itself. I concentrate on the Humdrum. On the rage. On how it shouldn’t still affect everything after it’s gone, and it’s time it left for good. “ **_Down came the rain and washed the spider out!_ ** ” 

         The rain washed the Humdrum away. 


	12. Bonus- MadLibs

“Mad Libs” 

Simon Snow Series

 

Baz

 

________ (swear). I left my _________ (noun A) in Simon’s room, and I’m useless as a _______ (occupation) without it. I can’t perform a single spell, too. I was so _________ (emotion) to leave this morning without waking up ________(character) that I must have left it on the _________ (noun). I can be such a ________ (noun) sometimes, especially around Simon. I sigh and write a reminder on the back of my ________ (part of the body). I have a very _________ (adjective)  ________ (type of event) to get to, but I’m going to be late, so I turn and ________ (verb) all the way back to his place. I _________ (verb) _________ (adverb) on the door, and _________ (person) answers it. I take care to pat the ___________ (animal) on the head, then grab the ________ (noun A) off of the counter. Snow watches me with a smug grin- it’s not the first time I’ve forgotten my ________ (noun A). I ________ (verb) him before I leave, then __________ (verb) ___________ (adverb) toward my meeting. 


End file.
